In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking

and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks
of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanking and represented the single worst
atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war. The actual
military invasion of Nanking was preceded by a tough battle at Shanghai that began in the
summer of 1937. Chinese forces there put up surprisingly stiff resistance against the Japanese
Army which had expected an easy victory in China. The Japanese had even bragged they would
conquer all of China in just three months. The stubborn resistance by the Chinese troops upset
that timetable, with the battle dragging on through the summer into late fall. This infuriated the
Japanese and whetted their appetite for the revenge that was to follow at Nanking. After finally
defeating the Chinese at Shanghai in November, 50,000 Japanese soldiers then marched on
toward Nanking. Unlike the troops at Shanghai, Chinese soldiers at Nanking were poorly led and
loosely organized. Although they greatly outnumbered the Japanese and had plenty of
ammunition, they withered under the ferocity of the Japanese attack, then engaged in a chaotic
retreat. After just four days of fighting, Japanese troops smashed into the city on December 13,
1937, with orders issued to "kill all captives." Their first concern was to eliminate any threat
from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers who surrendered. To the Japanese, surrender was an
unthinkable act of cowardice and the ultimate violation of the rigid code of military honor drilled
into them from childhood onward. Thus they looked upon Chinese POWs with utter contempt,
viewing them as less than human, unworthy of life. The elimination of the Chinese POWs began
after they were transported by trucks to remote locations on the outskirts of Nanking. As soon as
they were assembled, the savagery began, with young Japanese soldiers encouraged by their
superiors to inflict maximum pain and suffering upon individual POWs as a way of toughening

themselves up for future battles, and also to eradicate any civilized notions of mercy. Filmed
footage and still photographs taken by the Japanese themselves document the brutality. Smiling
soldiers can be seen conducting bayonet practice on live prisoners, decapitating them and
displaying severed heads as souvenirs, and proudly standing among mutilated corpses. Some of
the Chinese POWs were simply mowed down by machine-gun fire while others were tied-up,
soaked with gasoline and burned alive. Throughout the city of Nanking, random acts of murder
occurred as soldiers frequently fired their rifles into panicked crowds of civilians, killing
indiscriminately. Other soldiers killed shopkeepers, looted their stores, then set the buildings on
fire after locking people of all ages inside. They took pleasure in the extraordinary suffering that
ensued as the people desperately tried to escape the flames by climbing onto rooftops or leaping
down onto the street. The incredible carnage - citywide burnings, stabbings, drownings,
strangulations, rapes, thefts, and massive property destruction - continued unabated for about six
weeks, from mid-December 1937 through the beginning of February 1938. Young or old, male or
female, anyone could be shot on a whim by any Japanese soldier for any reason. Corpses could
be seen everywhere throughout the city. The streets of Nanking were said to literally have run red
with blood. Those who were not killed on the spot were taken to the outskirts of the city and
forced to dig their own graves, large rectangular pits that would be filled with decapitated
corpses resulting from killing contests the Japanese held among themselves. Other times, the
Japanese forced the Chinese to bury each other alive in the dirt. After this period of
unprecedented violence, the Japanese eased off somewhat and settled in for the duration of the
war. To pacify the population during the long occupation, highly addictive narcotics, including
opium and heroin, were distributed by Japanese soldiers to the people of Nanking, regardless of
age. An estimated 50,000 persons became addicted to heroin while many others lost themselves

in the city's opium dens. In addition, the notorious Comfort Women system was introduced
which forced young Chinese women to become slave-prostitutes, existing solely for the sexual
pleasure of Japanese soldiers. News reports of the happenings in Nanking appeared in the official
Japanese press and also in the West, as page-one reports in newspapers such as the New York
Times. Japanese news reports reflected the militaristic mood of the country in which any victory
by the Imperial Army resulting in further expansion of the Japanese empire was celebrated.
Eyewitness reports by Japanese military correspondents concerning the sufferings of the people
of Nanking also appeared. They reflected a mentality in which the brutal dominance of
subjugated or so-called inferior peoples was considered just. Incredibly, one paper, the Japan
Advertiser, actually published a running count of the heads severed by two officers involved in a
decapitation contest, as if it was some kind of a sporting match. In the United States, reports
published in the New York Times, Reader's Digest and Time Magazine, were greeted with
skepticism from the American public. The stories smuggled out of Nanking seemed almost too
fantastic to be believed. Overall, most Americans had only a passing knowledge or little interest
in Asia. Political leaders in both America and Britain remained overwhelmingly focused on the
situation in Europe where Adolf Hitler was rapidly re-arming Germany while at the same time
expanding the borders of the Nazi Reich through devious political maneuvers. Back in Nanking,
however, all was not lost. An extraordinary group of about 20 Americans and Europeans
remaining in the city, composed of missionaries, doctors and businessmen, took it upon
themselves to establish an International Safety Zone. Using Red Cross flags, they brazenly
declared a 2.5 square-mile area in the middle of the city off limits to the Japanese. On numerous
occasions, they also risked their lives by personally intervening to prevent the execution of
Chinese men or the rape of women and young girls. These Westerners became the unsung heroes

of Nanking, working day and night to the point of exhaustion to aid the Chinese. They also wrote
down their impressions of the daily scenes they witnessed, with one describing Nanking as "hell
on earth." Another wrote of the Japanese soldiers: "I did not imagine that such cruel people
existed in the modern world." About 300,000 Chinese civilians took refuge inside their Safety
Zone. Almost all of the people who did not make it into the Zone during the Rape of Nanking
ultimately perished.